Ah ha! This seems to address the "expand fast" strategy being very effective. Now we have to have more engineer micro in the middle to late game to keep up a high income stream. APM FTW! I'm curious how this pans out. The first minute meta changes here. Now capping a metal node right off the bat may NOT be optimal. Could be fun!

in my opinion it actually causes the opposite, each person will be forced to expand to a metal node wwith 3-4 metal off start and build there metal immediately. with each metal point on that node now worth 1.5 from 1. with 4 points i gain 6.5 metal per sec since the node is .5. before the node was 1 and each point was 1. making a 4 deposit node only worth 5. with it being 6.5 you can run 2 factories making brutes and archers solely off of that in metal/sec

in my opinion it actually causes the opposite, each person will be forced to expand to a metal node wwith 3-4 metal off start and build there metal immediately. with each metal point on that node now worth 1.5 from 1. with 4 points i gain 6.5 metal per sec since the node is .5. before the node was 1 and each point was 1. making a 4 deposit node only worth 5. with it being 6.5 you can run 2 factories making brutes and archers solely off of that in metal/sec

What are you talking about? The metal aquired per node remains unchanged, but now you need to build extractors first to attain most of it's value so simply sending armys in every direction wont pay off as good as before without taking the time to build an extractor in each.

Ah ha! This seems to address the "expand fast" strategy being very effective. Now we have to have more engineer micro in the middle to late game to keep up a high income stream. APM FTW! I'm curious how this pans out. The first minute meta changes here. Now capping a metal node right off the bat may NOT be optimal. Could be fun!

Interesting changes but now they have made tracking what extractors have or have not been destroyed that much more important while not providing a better UI to facilitate that. Not a problem on the small maps but some of the large maps have a LOT of resource nodes so I think something could be added to help with that.

I wouldn't have minded a slight buff to the extractors health too as they are very flimsy. Though I know that is a harder call as they want them to be vulnerable to fighter air to ground attack. But maybe they are too vulnerable to that right now so a slight buff to the extractors would still be fine.

I can understand reducing Brute's health but doesn't, "+ Brute's volley decreased from 5 shots to 4 shots" effectively reduce their fire power by 20%? They do very little damage as it currently stands. I am glad Creeps no longer recharge shields too as they take quite a while to kill and with the reduced fire power of both Brutes and Archers that would have been painful.

With the Zeus weapons getting some buffs and the Brute a little weaker the Zeus will go through them that much quicker. I guess that is what it is designed for. Will have to see how it plays out. I agree with the Zeus secondary weapon buff.

I think the T1 nerf and Zeus buff will allow an early upgrader to more effectively withstand/counter a T1 bum-rush. I like that.

And as others have pointed out, the extractors will be more important. There will be less advantage to dispatching combat units to claim territory without engineering support, and it will be easier to penalize players who expand without defending what they've taken. This is pretty much what we were asking for in the other thread, and I like it.

Edit: I do wish there was an easier way to keep track of where your built/unbuilt/blown up extrators are, though, for the reasons ticktoc mentioned.